


the eye sees not itself

by ZeGabz



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Julius Caesar - Freeform, Shakespeare-inspiried oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2014-10-27
Packaged: 2018-02-22 19:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2518862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeGabz/pseuds/ZeGabz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Certain things are universal. Certain stories can be told and retold a thousand times over. Such is theirs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the eye sees not itself

**Author's Note:**

> I happen to be playing Mark Antony (they made the role female for me, bless them) in a production of Julius Caesar, and was instantly inspired. Hope you all enjoy!

_~.~ The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. _~.~__

 

"Hey."

Bellamy doesn't need to open his eyes to know who his visitor is. Even if his ears weren't attuned to her melodic voice, he knows nobody else would bother coming to visit him in the makeshift prison Kane had made specially for him.

How nice.

Clarke sits down next to the pole Kane had him tied to. Her eyes dart to the guard, standing just out of earshot. She looks back at him, and he just shakes his head. He's not worth it. Besides, their people need her.

(He needs her too, but he'd never dare say it aloud)

"I don't like this," she says quietly, eyes drifting down to the ropes binding his arms around the pole.

"Yeah, I'm not too crazy about it myself," he mumbles in reply. She meets his gaze and smiles, if only half-heartedly. "You shouldn't be here."

"Where else would I be?" she asks, "With Finn? My mom?"

"They love you," Bellamy states flatly. Her gaze doesn't drift.

"Maybe I don't want to be with someone who does right now." Silence follows her words, and he sees her eyes once again find the ropes that bind him. "You deserve their thanks. Not this."

"Thanks for what?" Bellamy snorts, "For shooting their leader? For killing three hundred innocent people to save my own ass?"

"For keeping us alive."

Clarke moves closer to him, and her hand comes to rest on his bloody cheek. Kane hadn't bothered cleaning him off. He leans into her touch, eyes closing. He wonders how she does that, how she manages to be so soft and comforting in a world of hard edges and cruelty. In a world of people like him. Her fingers gently caress the dried blood off of his cheek.

"You're too good for this place," he murmurs. "For the people from the Ark, for us."

Clarke's fingers still. "Bellamy . . . "

"Get out of here, Clarke." Her brows furrow. "You're all our people have right now. They're confused, the adults don't know a damn thing, and they need something solid."

"They need you."

"It's my fault I'm in here. It's my fault the adults don't trust me, and want me dead. It's not fate, or even Kane, really. I am where I am because of me, plain and simple." Clarke's hand drops from his face. "Leave. I'm sure as hell not going anywhere."

She leaves, but she looks back as she does, and that keeps him afloat.

 

_~.~ But I am constant as the northern star, of whose true-fix'd and resting quality there is not elbow in the firmament. ~.~_

 

She marches past the man guarding the so-called council without blinking, and strides straight inside. Her mother spots her instantly and stands in surprise.

"Clarke-"

"I'm not here for you," Clarke states. She looks over at Kane, whose eyes narrow. "I'm here for him." Brown eyes bore into blue, and Clarke briefly wonders how many times Kane has repeated this exercise with her mother.

"Everyone clear out."

Abby walks up to her, but she shakes her mother off. "This doesn't concern you," Clarke mutters. Kane arches an eyebrow. Abby's face is stricken, but she nods silently and leaves.

The Chancellor and the princess lock eyes, and Clarke almost starts as she sees the exact same stubborn fire in Kane's eyes that she's often seen in Bellamy's.

"I'm not letting him go," Kane says as soon as they're alone.

"Yes, you are."

"He tried to kill someone, and a society can't be built on loopholes."

Clarke approaches the man slowly, eyes icy. "Bellamy Blake is a hero."

Kane snorts in disbelief. "Bellamy Blake is a killer."

"You're wrong. You see, unlike you, he doesn't live on some self-righteous podium. He isn't lost in laws and outdated rules. He does what he needs to do to ensure that we live. That doesn't make him a killer. It makes him a survivor, a leader."

"Trying to kill someone makes him a killer," Kane snarls, "I will not be moved on this."

"My people need him. Let him go. Please."

"That's not how civilization works."

Clarke supposes she should be intimidated. But she's faced down the leaders of the Grounders, and broken out of Mount Weather. Of course she has another tactic up her sleeve. "Yes, because a system that holds petty thievery on par with murder is how it works, right?" Clarke crosses her arms. "Bellamy and I are the ones who built a life here when you abandoned us. The kids trust us, not you. If I have to, I'll get them to fight to free Bellamy. Because what you're doing is wrong, and if there's one thing this place has taught me, it's that nothing is black and white like you believe." Her eyes blaze. "As of right now, Bellamy goes free."

She turns and leaves without another word, and for a brief moment wonders if anyone has ever gotten the best of a chancellor so quickly.

Bellamy will be proud.

 

_~.~ The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. ~.~_

 

The first thing he's aware of is the pressure on his wrists, raw from days of being tied without any concern for comfort, finally disappearing. He stirs, blinking to clear the sleep from his eyes, and tries to stand. Suffice it to say, he fails miserably.

"Stay still," comes Clarke's voice in a gentle whisper. "You're weak."

"Says you," Bellamy mutters, coughing. "I've never been better." She chuckles, and then he feels a cool, wet cloth being pressed against his cheek.

"When's the last time you washed up?" she asks. He shrugs. "That's what I thought. Now shut up and let me clean you off."

"My own sponge bath from Clarke Griffin," Bellamy mumbles, "I'm honored." He winces as her rag passes over a particularly deep gash. Her fingers move to his face to inspect it, and he feels her hot breath on his face as she leans in closer.

"You should be," she retorts. He grins through the sting her rag leaves in its wake. "When you look human again, I'm taking you to my tent, so you can have some privacy."

"Me or we?" he jokes, but it comes out as more of a gurgle as a fit of coughs racks his body. She holds him steady, murmuring words of comfort and continuing to clean his face. "Clarke."

She pauses, looking at him. "Bellamy?"

"Thank you."

She remembers the last time he thanked her. I didn't do it for you.

"We're partners," she responds, "It's what we do."

 

_~.~ Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face? No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself, but by reflection, by some other things. ~.~_

 

As he recovers, gets stronger, she stays by his side.

"We're going to put up a united front," she says as they walk around the settlement, as the adults call it. "Our people are going to know we're not backing down."

She's not real. She cannot be real. She's too good to be true.

"Is it weird if I say I miss the old days?" she asks one day, doodling in her sketchpad. Bellamy glances up from his ration.

"You mean the days when we wanted to kill each other?" Clarke rolls her eyes.

"Not what I meant. I mean when it was just all of us." Bellamy shrugs. "I really think we could've built something good on our own. I mean sure, we had a lot of problems, but we were good. We would've made it." Bellamy stares at the floor. "Do you miss anything about the beginning?"

"Octavia," he admits. He looks up at her. "Hell, even Wells."

"Being able to hunt without having to ask permission," she adds.

"Freedom of speech." He snorts. "Now I have to actually think before I speak. It sucks. So much for-"

"-whatever the hell we want?" Clarke finishes in a sing-song voice, eyes sparkling. He smiles despite himself.

"Whatever the hell we want," he echoes softly.

 

_~.~ I have not from your eyes that gentleness and show of love as I was wont to have: you bear too stubborn and too strange a hand over your friend that loves you. ~.~_

 

Life goes on. Threats come, some bigger than others, but they pass just as quickly. Bellamy stays low, but keeps a strong presence with all of the delinquents.

After six long months, Bellamy gets a job from Abby Griffin (who apparently had to cash in about a thousand favors) as a guard. More specifically, as Clarke's bodyguard.

"We need herbal remedies," she says as she rummages for a uniform that will fit him. "Clarke knows these plants better than any of my staff. And as much as I don't want to send her out, I have to." She smiles as she finds it, and tosses it to him. "And I know that if anyone will keep her safe, it's you."

"I will," he says, and if he notices the gleam in her eyes as she regards him, he says nothing about it.

"Bellamy!" Spacewalker pokes his head into the tent, "Hurry and get suited up, Clarke says she wants to go foraging." He looks down at the uniform and chuckles. "I can't wait to see you all nice and put together again."

Bellamy rolls his eyes as Abby and Spacewalker leave, and puts on his damn uniform.

He styles his hair back, like when he worked as a janitor. He thinks he looks ridiculous, but he wants to make a good first impression, because he might not ever get a better chance to keep Clarke safe. Jasper and Monty fall to the ground from laughter, and even Finn can't hold back a snort of amusement.

"Nice look," says Miller, who's working as a builder. A waste, Bellamy thinks, he's a better guard than every damn idiot Kane has employed. "I bet Clarke will swoon."

"Get back to work," Bellamy huffs, shoving his friend, who just chuckles and returns to his duties.

Clarke grins when she sees him, holding several bags. "If you would have told me when the ship first came down that Bellamy Blake would be my bodyguard, I would have laughed."

"So would I," he retorts, "And then I would have left you to get lost." Clarke shakes her head and then gives him a once-over.

"Conformity suits you," she teases. Reaching a hand out, she ruffles his hair until it falls back over his face. "You look handsome."

"Don't I always?" She doesn't respond, just motions for him to follow.

They walk through the woods in an easy silence, Bellamy keeping his eyes trained on the trees around them. He's back in his element now, and Clarke in hers.

They stop by a stream after a while, and she takes the opportunity to rinse off some roots she's gathered. Bellamy keeps his gaze trained on the forest.

"You should've been made a guard long ago," Clarke says. His gaze darts down to where she sits, leaning over the stream. "You and Miller and all of our gunners."

"Life's not fair," he replies with an apathetic shrug, "I'm just biding my time for now."

He knows it's just a matter of time until something happens that Kane is not ready to handle, and he will be ready when it does.

"But hey, Clarke." She looks up from her cleaning. "I'm okay with where I'm at now."

She smiles. "Me too."

 

_~.~ Are not you moved, when all the sway of earth shakes like a thing infirm? ~.~_

 

"I can see I made a good choice," Abby says when Clarke arrives back with a bag full of herbs and roots. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yes," Clarke answers briskly, avoiding meeting her mother's eyes.

She can't forgive her. She can't.

She can almost hear his voice in her head, telling her to slay her demons.

"You know, when you all were still missing, everyone thought you were all as good as dead." Clarke's hands still. "Not him, though. He fought to bring you all back, he risked his life to escape and go searching with Finn."

"We don't abandon our own," Clarke says softly.

"He cares for you."

Clarke wants to deny it, because such an observation from her mother feels like an intrusion on something precious, something only she and Bellamy know.

"He went after you alone. He was willing to die for you."

Clarke still doesn't turn, because she knows what her mother is leading to.

"Clarke . . . are the two of you . . . ?"

She turns then, eyes ablaze. "Even if we were, it would be none of your business. You lost the right to know when you turned Dad in to be killed." Abby opens her mouth helplessly, but no words come out. Clarke drops her roots. "Sort through them yourself, I need some air."

Abby doesn't follow as she storms out of the ten, and straight into Bellamy.

"Whoa, there, Princess," he chuckles, arms coming to her shoulders, helping her regain balance. He frowns upon closer inspecting her face. "What's wrong?"

Clarke takes a deep, shaky breath. "I don't want to talk about it."

"That's fine." His hands remain on her shoulders. "Hey, look at me." Clarke complies. "It's gonna be okay. Whatever it is, I've got your back."

In that moment, as Bellamy stands before her in his guard uniform, hair mussed and eyes soft, Clarke thinks she might love him.

 

_I charm you, by my once-commended beauty,_

_By all your vows of love and that great vow_

_Which did incorporate and make us one,_

_That you unfold to me, yourself, your half,_

_Why you are heavy_


End file.
